


All Creatures Small and Dead

by AAPessimal



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Monty Python's Flying Circus
Genre: Animal Abuse, Gen, Zoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AAPessimal/pseuds/AAPessimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a taster from my extended Discworld stories, available on FFN.   this is a chapter from "Zoo Tales",  an ongoing work concerning everyday management of the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo. How this came to be is a tale in itself - let us say Dibbler was involved. </p><p>Zoo Director Johanna Smith-Rhodes knows all about animals. She's from Howondaland, after all. She is also a graduate Assassin who does not take idiots gladly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Creatures Small and Dead

**Author's Note:**

> The key figure here is Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who is hardly anything more than an orphaned name in the canon. All the canon knows is that she is a qualified Assassin and a teacher at the Guild School. But where does she come from? How old is she? What does she teach? Her name is one of quite a few tantalising clues in the Canon that out there, at the furthest end of Rimwards Howondaland, is another of those lost colonies that, like Fourecks, regularly resurface and complicate things in Ankh-Morpork. After all, there is Fourecks and there are the Foggy Islands, places not unlike Australia and New Zealand. Why stop there? South Africa is such an interesting place with such a chequered and, er, colourful, history. Dropping a fairly typical attitudinal Sed Efrrrrikan person into Ankh-Morpork to see what ripples she caused was a fun thing to do. And a barmy concept like apartheid - obselete now but still living memory - is such a weird notion that it belongs on the Discworld. it is still a going concern in Rimwards Howondaland, a nation ringed with black peoples who it has unnaccountably alienated. (In accordance with Pratchett's Law of National Stereotypes, R.H. is everything you thought you knew about South Africa, turned up to eleven). 
> 
> Johanna flouts the conventions of her country, White Howondaland, by having a black-skinned assistant and former pupil, Ruth N'Kweze. But then, she's been living in Ankh-Morpork for ten years now, and that city changes people. She teaches a range of skills at the Guild school: biology, natural studies, animal management, unorthodox combat skills and Applied Exothermic Alchemy (trans: explosives and demolitions, often with extreme prejudice). She is deceptively slight and girlish, with red hair and freckles. Her temper is fierce and she does not take idiots gladly. Young Gus, junior keeper at the Zoo (he appears in Terry Pratchett's "The world of Poo) is about to find out. 
> 
> The second half of this story is a riff on a familiar Monty Python theme....
> 
> WARNING: CLOWNS APPEAR.

_**Zoo Tales** _

_More animal handling shennanigans in the city of Ankh-Morpork._

_The second half of the story is not original. But in this context it HAD to be done...Ankh-Morpork deserves its take on a classic comedy sketch._

Wednesday afternoon at the Assassins' Guild School was usually devoted to sports, especially competitive sports with an aura of danger and excitement about them. The Wall Game would be in full flow, supervised by one of the older, keener, masters, vicariously recalling his own student days at the Guild  _when he didn't have a care in the Disc._ Mr Nivor or the Compte de Yoyo were the usual supervising teachers; Miss Band helped out if a girls' team was playing. Alice Band normally spent her Wednesday afternoons drilling the School edificeering squad for its annual grudge-match against the Thieves and other Guilds. It had begun as the Boggis-Downey Cup For Edificeering Excellence; then other Guilds had diffidently asked if they could join in. The Steeplejacks' Guild was now a third player, and the city's Extreme Sports Society also competed for the fun of the game. **(1)**

Other Guild teams, supervised by teachers, would be competing in various leagues across the City.  _Foot-the-Ball_  was popular; Mr Bradlifudd, the PE master, was also a keen convert to Llamedosian Rules Foot-The-Ball which he held to be great Assassin training in those extra-curricular skills such as biting, gouging, mauling, fouling in the line-outs, and not being seen doing it by the officiating Druid. That afternoon, the Assassins Guild were playing Ankh-Morpork Llamedosians away at Old Coathanger Elk Park.

More conventional sports, such as hockey and lacrosse, also figured. Teaching assistant Ruth N'Kweze was quietly relieved to have drawn a rock-solid excuse not to participate. She considered that taking teams of girls from the Assassins' School and the Thieves' School, and putting them on a sports field with great big sticks, was not  _that_ wise a move. She also reflected that lacrosse had been invented by the Central Howondalandian Red Indians as a means of fighting wars and settling differences without actually killing anyone. Any injury short of permanent maiming was held to be acceptable, however.

Ruth smiled. She was indoors and in the warm and performing essential teaching tasks. It certainly beat all those Wednesday afternoons as a school student, when she had been shivering in skimpy sports clothing, unable to believe how cold and wet Ankh-Morpork was in winter compared to her native Howondaland. And she'd made the essential mistake of demonstrating her physical fitness and hand-eye co-ordination were well above average. She'd been considered a essential part of the School hockey squad because of her tirelessness and her ability to escalate a gentle trot forward into an all-out charge sweeping all before her, wielding her hockey stick as though it were a battle knobkerrie. Well, she  _was_  a Zulu, one of a race that taught its young people how to move and fight from an early age.

But these days, Wednesday afternoons promised to be more sedate, even if she had to spend them at the Fools' Guild. At least it was in the warm and dry. Well, dry, anyway. The Fools had heard about the concept of central heating and dismissed it as a weakening and corrupting influence.

The lecture hall at the Fools' Guild was rapidly filling. Johanna Smith-Rhodes waited at the podium, her notes sorted into order, knowing Ruth would be capable of running the iconograph slide lantern and projecting the pictures onto the screen. Johanna had been asked if she could fit in a teaching consultancy at the Fools' Guild; she had agreed, partly for the experience, and partly because the new students the Guild had been persuaded to take would need every help they could get. The Fools paid generously for her time, and it amounted to no more than two or three Wednesday afternoons a month – the ideal day, as classroom-based teaching was suspended for the afternoon to allow for Sports. Johanna had taken sports lessons on Wednesdays, but like Ruth, she was also from Howondaland, and preferred being indoors in the rain and cold.

Johanna looked across the benches in front of her as they filled. She was impassive, forcing herself to hold back a deep instinctive shudder at the sight of blocks of distinctively dressed Clowns, Jesters, Conjurors, Dorises, Minstrels, Troubadors... and the other sort... who were all settling down, seeming glad of a break in their usual routine, some looking expectantly at her. It was a riot of colour, if you liked that sort of riot, and something of a spectacle, if you liked wearing those sort of glasses. Here and there were more specialised or culturally appropriate clowns, such as the  _macsboes_  from Llamedos, who wore garishly clashing red and green motley, and waved a giant inflatable leek as a badge of office. **(2)**

She idly wondered what the collective noun for a group of clowns was. A  _trauma_  of clowns? An  _aversion_  of clowns? She nodded at a couple of Dorises she knew, the all-purpose conjuror's assistants, trapeze artistes, knife-throwers' targets (one or two of whom were visibly bandaged), and the group of solemn-looking trainee Dorises they were shepherding. They had been allowed to wear long cloaks over their skimpy leotards, a concession not just to warmth but to modesty, lest they inflame the lusts of clowns and distract them from their studies. Johanna sighed. This first influx of girl students to the Fools' Guild was one of the reasons why she and Ruth were here today.  **(3)**

But there was an immediate purpose...

"Good efternoon!" she announced, beginning the lecture. "My name is Johanna Smith-Rhodes. I normally teach et the Essessins' Guild School next door. I hev responsibility for the Guild's Enimel Menegement Unit, end I hev a lot to do with the City Zoo. I em here today to present a lecture in Nature Studies End Zoology for Fools, Clowns, end all essociete trades."

She let her eyes play over the one occupational group, who had been directed to the very front benches for good reasons, to whom she would be directing a lot of her lecture. These were more drably dressed than the others, and tended to be long, thin, sad-looking people dressed in close-fitting black. Not Assassin-black, but a drabber, sadder woebegone-looking black. Their faces were pale and rubbery and if their hair had not started as black, it had been dyed that colour. Incredibly, there were several women among them.

"I will instruct you in those enimel species you will need to be ewere of in your careers. First slide, please, Ruth."

The massed clowns reacted with an "ooh!" as a fine example of  _Leiurus quinquestriatus,_ presenting a fine example of mesosoma, was projected on the screen at many times lifesize. Its variegated lime-green legs contrasted vividly to its black body and tail.

"The five-striped smooth-tail." Johanna said, neutrally. "This is found in Kletch end the surrounding countries. Its eight legs cless it es a member of the  _erechnid_ order of enimels. We keep a colony of these, for breeding purposes, et the Essessins' Guild. Its common name is the Deathstalker Scorpion. There is one other place in this city where a thriving population is found. I shell come to this shortly."

She smiled at the assembled Fools' Guild.

"Its sting is ebsolutely lethal, elthough not instently so. People stung by a Deathstalker tend to linger, in horrible pain, for up to a day prior to expiring of  _envenomation_. Now I begin with this enimel, which by the way is  _not_  the most venomous or dangerous scorpion, for a reason. So far, nearly two thousand species of scorpion hev been discovered on the Disc. More are being identified ell the time. Most of these, if they sting you, will cause symptoms ranging from mild discomfort to searing egony. But you will survive. Only ebout fifty species are known to cause fatelity in people. None of these is in danger of extinction. Next slide, please, Ruth!"

The next slide was a map of the Disc with the sort of shading that makes people remember geography classes and shudder.

"Distribution of scorpion species." said Johanna. "Es you cen see, they ere found on ell continents, elthough there are few native species here in the Centre, end those lergely hermless to people. The heaviest distributions are in Fourecks, which hes most of ell; in the desert belt countries such es Kletch end Hersheba. The jungles of Howondaland, Ghat end Peraquat hev a respectable distribution of species. Egetea hes several. My own native Rimwards Howondaland comes perheps third, efter Fourecks end Kletch, for quentity end lethality of its native scorpions."

As the slideshow progressed, Johanna noticed quite a few clowns were looking distinctly queasy. Good.

"The stenderd work on Fourecksian wildlife is  _Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Emphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Gresses, Trees, Mosses, end Lichens of Terror Incognita_. Volumes seventeen to twenty-three inclusive cover scorpions. I recommend this to the interested student."

Johanna remorselessly went on to cover extremely interesting scorpion species such as the  _Euscorpius Magii,_ traditionally utilised as a promotion method at Unseen University. During most of this time she observed the white-faced and black-dressed mime artists.

"Here in Enkh-Morpork, ownership of scorpions is strictly controlled end licenced, by decree of the Petricien." she said. "I hold a licence for my work et the Enimel Menegement Unit. I propose for you to visit, in small groups, over the next month."

She smiled again.

"The Guild holds a licence ellowing steff end students to work with scorpions. A similar group licence covers the Zoo, where a range of erechnids are safely held in ceptivity in conditions which ere safe enough to ellow the generel public to visit. The University hes trensferred its scorpion-related ectivities to its Zoo campus. I believe the Erch-Chencellor was  _most_  insistent this should heppen. Now these ere two of the three places in this city where large scorpion populations are kept. Perhaps the ladies end gentlemen in the front row here cen hezerd a guess es to the third?"

She looked, expectantly, at the mime artists, who shuffled their feet and looked away. None answered. One, bolder than the rest, steepled his fingers, looked at her, and raised an eyebrow. She smiled.  _There's always a joker._

"Very well mimed, sir!" she said, approvingly. "And thet very cleverly illustrates the unevoideble fect thet the third major population centre for scorpions in this city are the pits end dungeons beneath the Petrician's Pelece. I menege the contrect to breed end provide scorpions end serpents for the Petricien. I cen testify, heving seen them, thet the enimels kept et the Pelece are well-tended and thriving in en environment which is ideally suited for them. Lord Vetinari employs me es a  _consultant_  on these metters. I found it interesting thet the scorpion pits all hev a sign nailed to the wall, which is upside-down, seying  _Learn The Words._ I do not pretend to know whet thet means. It is possibly one of Lord Vetinari's intellectual jokes."

She smiled and allowed this to sink in.

"Having femiliarised you with the ways end hebits of scorpions, you now know to recognise them by type end species. I em reliebly told the best defence, if unfortunate enough to be thrown into a scorpion pit, is to stand, sit, or lie  _ebsolutely_  still end allow them to consider you es pert of the furniture, es en uninteresting thing thet they will crawl end welk over end otherwise disregard. Motion end movement ettrect them, end from their point of view, a creature es huge es a human elerms them end is a threat to be dealt with. They ere simple-minded creatures, and view ell else es either  _prey_  or es  _predator_. Either way, their response is the same."

Johanna smiled at the mime-artists again.

"But I em sure a well-trained mime artist, whose body is his tool, will hev the muscle control end the self-discipline to lie still and motionless for however long it takes, regardless of how many scorpions are ettrected to the warmth to be found inside his trouser leg. Myself, I would not care to try it. Now, moving on to snakes end serpents..."

Johanna liked her lecturing work at the Fools' Guild. She had been asked to make her teaching specific to the particular requirements of Fools' Guild members. She was obliging in spades.

* * *

Back at the Zoo in the early evening, Johanna caught up with any issues requiring her personal attention. She heard reports from the two veteran head keepers, Mr Grinchlow and Mr Pontoon. Everything seemed routine. But...

"Is there enything  _wrong_ , Mr Grinchlow?" she asked politely, recognising the signs. The old keeper was shuffling his feet and looking a little bit shifty.

"Well, miss. It's young Gus, the apprentice. We took the decision to send him down to Wazir and Webb's with a golem and a cart, to pick up the new ocelots what have just been imported..."

"He's fit, miss. We thought he was  _ready_  to do a collection job on his own." added Pontoon.

Johanna thought quickly, and decided to go through three possibilities that had occurred to her. Or more. You never knew, with Young Gus.

"How bad are his injuries?" she asked.

"Oh, he wasn't injured, miss. Not as such." Grinchlow assured her.

She nodded. Ocelots could bite, but were generally a safe risk to transport if securely caged.

"Hev the enimels been receptured?" she inquired, moving on to Possibility Two. She was experienced enough to know what questions to ask. The next one, had the answer been "yes", would have been "Who got hurt?" closely followed by "Can I expect a visit from the Watch?" and "What has the Times printed about this?"

"No, miss. No animal escape. They all got back here safely, and the new animals are in quarantine for the moment."

Johanna winced. That left only one possibility. Young Gus was inexperienced. He was young, cheerful, and naïve. Which added up to "mark" for many people in Ankh-Morpork.

"Mr Grinchlow, what bed bergain did Mr Webb persuade Young Gus to ecquire for the Zoo  _this_ time?"

Grinchlow swallowed, nervously. Mr Pontoon, the Deputy Head Keeper, edged away from him.

"You'd better come and  _see_ , miss."

Johanna looked down at the thing in the Aviary cage.

"It's a very  _relaxed_  parrot, isn't it, miss?" Young Gus said, nervously. "Mister Webb said they tend to sleep a lot. NoThingfjordian Blue, miss. Marvellous plumage, isn't it?"

The parrot was lying on its back with its feet in the air. Johanna was resisting a strong desire to pull it out of the cage and belabour young Gus around the head with it.

"Mr Ettercop." she said, with slow exaggerated politeness of the sort that made her students duck for cover. "Augustus. Or mey I cell you  _Gus_?"

"Be honoured, miss!" said Young Gus, who in matters of self-preservation was somewhat slow on the uptake. Grinchlow and Pontoon took an involuntary step backwards.

"Gus. Are you eware thet perrots, in the main, come from tropical jungles in places like Ghat, Peraquet or Howondaland? NoThingfjord is distinguished by its being a cold end sub-Hublendian place. There is, in fect, a complete leck of tropical jungle end hebitets where a perrot would be et home end comforteble. Is it possible, do you think, that Mr Webb took edventege of your trusting nature, end the fect you were sent unsupervised to his premises?"

Her glare took in the two senior keepers, who shuffled away from her.

Johanna continued, calm and remorseless,

"End the fect this bird is lying on its beck with its feet in the air end is ebsolutely motionless. Does this not tell you something, Gus? Does it not communicate something of importance? Some little  _clue_ , perheps?"

"Errr..." said Young Gus. "Mr Webb told me it was pining for the fjords, miss."

"Pining for the fjords..." Johanna repeated, incredulous. A few Assassins' Guild pupils on late duties had gathered round at a safe distance, to appreciate the street theatre.

"And Mr Webb said it was tired and sha... er,  _tired,_  after a prolonged squawk."

Johanna took a deep, deep, breath.

"This perrot is  _dead_ , Gus!" she exclaimed, feeling unaccountably ridiculous for saying it. She felt this was not enough.

"It hes expired! It is no more! It's deceased!"

"Well, yes, but apart from that, what's wrong with it?" Gus asked.

"It's  _dead_ , thet's whet's wrong with it!" she exclaimed. She felt she was on a roll. "I know a dead perrot when I see one, end I'm looking at one right  _now!"_

There was a long pause.

"Are you sure it's not just resting?" Young Gus asked, hopefully.

"Gus, this perrot is  _deceased_! I could take it out of the cage end wave it around a bit end try mouth-to-beak resuscitation or cardiac massage on its breast, but none of those things would work, because it is  _dead_!"

"Well... could we take it to an Igor, miss?"

Johanna had resisted the temptation to get an Igor vet on the staff. She'd seen them at work; she just didn't know whewre these things would end.

"Gus, even if en Igor put four thousand volts of lightning through it, ell we would heve would be a charred and burnt corpse!"

"Maybe it's just pining?"

"NO, Gus! It's not pining, it hes  _pessed on_! This perrot is no more! It hes ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late perrot!  _Ek is todt!_  Bereft of life, it rests in peace! Its metebolical processes are of interest only to whoever cerries out the autopsy! It hes hopped the twig! It hes shuffled off this mortal coil! It hes run down the curtain end joined the choir invisible! Death, the Elpha end the Omega, hes called to collect! This... is en  _EX-PERROT!_

Johanna paused for breath after her exertion and glared at Young Gus.

"Besides, the holes in its feet suggest it hed been  _nailed_  to something." she added. Assassins were taught to observe.

"Oh, for some reason it had been nailed to its perch", Young Gus said, helpfully. "I thought that was  _cruel_ , miss, and you wouldn't approve, so I took the nails out. Then it had a bit of a lie-down."

"Lad, I think we'd better replace it." Mr Grinchlow said, kindly.

Johanna nodded, empahatically.

"Take it beck to Wazir end Webb." she said. "tell them from me that if we do not get en ecceptible exchange or a refund, I will visit  _personally,_ with extreme prejudice. Got thet?"

"Yes, miss" said Young Gus.

Wazir and Webb were the only live animal dealers in the City; the Zoo was forced to deal with them. This had led to several situations where the animal dealers had tried to take advantage.

Johanna took a deep breath.

"The boy's inexperienced, miss." said Mr Pontoon. "I'm sure he'll grow into a good keeper."

"He hed better hed!" she said, fuming.

* * *

The next morning, Young Gus was sent off on his mission. This time he returned, having exchanged the deficient bird, with a far smaller cage.

"What's that, lad?" Mr Grinchlow asked him, kindly.

"Oh,Mr Webb was very apologetic." said Young Gus. He give me an exchange. It's a slug."

"A slug." said the old keeper, flatly. How was he going to explain  _this_  to the girl? She was  _frightening_  when she was worked up into a temper...

"Yes! And what's more, it can  _talk_!" Young Gus said, proudly.

Mr Grinchlow did the face-palm-slap thing.

"Come on,lad" he said, kindly. "Fortunately she's at the Guild school all day today..."

* * *

 **(1) T** he previous summer, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh, had surprised everyone by entering a City Watch edificeering team. Alice Band did not like to be reminded of this, and nor did Miss Steffi Gibbet, her opposite number at the Thieves' Guild School. Watchmen who could edificeer were, to Steffi, what predatory cats who could climb trees were to the Librarian. This tale has been plotted and may come soon...

 **(2)**  The _macsboes_  had evolved as a licenced Druidic clown, whose function was to tell unfunny jokes, attend  _pel-y-droed_ games so they could ritually intone "I was there!" afterwards, and lead the ritual invocation of OGGY OGGY OGGY! (OI, OI, OI!) . In Llamedosian culture, it was considered bad luck not to laugh at jokes made by a macsboes, or to fail to join in with the chant or the umpteenth singing of the solemn hymn  _Sospan Fach._ They are a sort of priest-clown and are given great honour among llamedosians, when they cannot be avoided.

 **(3)**  See my story  _ **Clowning is a Serious Business,**_ to which this could be considered to be a postscript.


End file.
